It's not that cats are obstinate, nor that they are determined, it is the fact that they are so obstinately determined that I have such antipathy to them being labelled 'domestic'. ............. Mike Thomas

Perhaps this Blog should be called 'Normal for Norfolk ..... and Cats', as I am only too aware that Scribble (our cat) has, on some occasions hijacked the core reason for the Blog. Which is all about The Old Bakery and, well check it out for yourselves on this page just to the left of these ramblings.
But, you see, we moved here as a family and the cat is very much a part of the family, one of the more difficult ones and as it turns out one of the more needy ones, but family none the less. What's more is that she is the only one that I share the house with for most of the time, the one I confide with, eat with, sit down and relax with and get thoroughly exasperated with for most of the week all we have is each other. You could say, that's a little bit sad isn't it and perhaps it is but we are both quite happy with our lot and I wonder how many non-'sad' people can truly say that about their lives.

As I started to write this I heard the patter of her little puds as she plodded down the stairs having spent the last 3 hours snoozing on the new Super King size bed snuggled into the folds of the most comfortable of duvets. Having strolled into the living room she has jumped up onto my lap, usurping the laptop that I was writing on, and curled up into a ball whilst I struggle to write the blog side saddle, as it were.

Oh by the way, I know I said we eat with each other well I didn't mean that I am that far gone that I prop the cat up in a comfortable chair, lay a table for two, with candles, the best plates, little kitty napkins, a bottle of château puddle water, and a mini scratching post for after meal relaxation. Of course not, candles are far to unsafe to have out whilst dining with a cat!
Thanks to Kitty Stampede's blog for the attached photo...

http://kittystampede.blogspot.com/2009/11/when-cats-sit-like-humans.html

No, one of us gets grilled lamb in a thick gravy with carrots and peas and I get the cheese on bloody toast! That said she still spends most of the time running figures of eight around my feet in anticipation that some of the cheese may fall her way. I understand that RoSPA say slips, trips and falls are the most common accidents in the home and lead to more than a million people going to hospital annually.
Well I reckon any house where someone has taken an unexplainable fatal fall need only  look to the cat for the reason. I bet they account for a large proportion of the million 'falls'.

As I said she is a very needy cat and most of the day she wants to be near me. Yesterday I had a lot to do in the office but she doesn't like the office so I let her in, she then spends 10minutes trying to coach me out of the office and I end up locking her back out of the room again. She will complain that I'm not 'playing' with her by use of much meowiness and I'll try to concentrate on the workload trying to ignore the whining.  I managed to ignore her and she finally gave up moaning, so I thought. The office directly faces the back porch, across our patio, and as I was really doing my best to get to grips with those fire regs I became aware of a presence in the corner of my eye I caught a glimpse of Scribble who had run around the other side of the house through the cat flap, leapt onto the porch's window sill and was sitting there staring at me and very clearly (although I could not hear it) meowing for Britain. If you have ever watched the TV show Frasier, the stare was akin to the one that Eddy the dog would often give Frasier. The eyes were burning into my very psyche and every time I looked away, it was no good because I could still feel that burning stare. In the end I just couldn't concentrate and I had to go and let her into the garden.

Letting her into the garden is a problem as she has this habit of climbing a shrub to get on top of the wall that surrounds our garden and then leaping off the wall on the other side. Now she may have grim determination on her side when jumping off this 6' wall and landing with a thump, but one thing she hasn't got is forward planning skills. She has no idea as to how she is going to get back in the garden, all she knows is that she wants to have a little look around on the other side. This is the reason we lost her for a couple of days last time, she got out and couldn't get back in again, oh and I think she is rubbish at map reading too.

So today I had to go to the shops and buy another cat flap, this one however, I had to fit in our garden gate of all places. Now it was a particularly fiddly job and it took me about half an hour, sitting legs astride the gate fuffing around fitting this thing. Every now and then a neighbour would pass by and I could see that they clearly thought that I had totally misunderstood where cat flaps should be fitted. Well it was such a fiddly thing that I know where I felt like sticking it! Anyway with the job completed I went and grabbed said cat and, of course, she didn't want to clamber up the tree on to the wall. So I had to 'assist' her. Then she didn't want to jump off the wall, so again I had to 'assist' her (I felt a bit guilty but hey she had to learn), then she didn't want to go back through the cat flap.However after a good sniff of the thing she popped back into the garden, my mission was completed.

During the day I had two neighbours tell me how sorry they were that our cat was still missing. I was perplexed at this and explained that she had been found safe and well. Apparently there was a sign up in the window of the house next door about a lost 'FELIX LOOK-A-LIKE' cat, which would describe our cat well.
So I headed over to the sign to check it out and sure enough it described our cat fairly well. Then I had a horrendous thought. Suppose we had NOT found our cat at all, but this other persons cat instead! It went missing at the same time that we thought we had found our cat. As I was still asking myself if we would really have known if it was our cat and she had been more vocal than before and maybe we will need to get old photos out to ensure that we have really got the right one. Ooo, what a tadoo, and how will we get her back to her owners if she is not ours and then, naturally, perhaps there was a reward for returning the cat that we had stolen! It was about then that I got to the clincher, the deal breaker, the unequivocal truth that I had nothing to worry about as the sign went on to describe their cat in more detail.....
She has three legs.....

Well frankly, rather than comparing her to the Felix cat, I think it would have cut to the quick a bit more if it just said have you seen a three legged cat because we have lost one! Because the chances of there being two 3 legged cats in the vicinity were seriously low. Don't get me wrong my cat HAS got three legs...........  plus a spare!

So now my cat can come and go as she pleases, sure there comes a risk, but that was there anyway, all I've done is enabled her a route back into the garden. Because we may like to think that cats are domestic but they just do what they want, how and when they want to do it regardless of the consequences or of our wishes or control.
It's not that cats are obstinate, nor that they are determined, it is the fact that they are so obstinately determined that I have such antipathy to them being labelled 'domestic'.





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